Suspicion surrounds fire at old Marydale retreat center

Fire alarms rang through the Centro de Amistad de Cristo Rey on Wednesday night as a fire tore through the basement of a vacant structure just across a pond.

A fire started in the basement of the old Marydale retreat center building on the 900 block of Donaldson Road in Point Pleasant at about 10:30 p.m. Smoke still drifted out of the building an hour later.

Crews finally extinguished the blaze around 2:30 a.m.

Point Pleasant Fire Chief Michael Giordano said the fire was suspicious.

"The Boone County Sheriff was up here doing some training," Giordano said. "They saw a person vacate the building very quickly."

Shortly after that, the deputies noticed smoke coming from the building.

"We had a fairly substantial fire in the basement," Giordano said. "We were able to confine it to the basement."

In addition to a witness seeing a person leave the structure at the time of the fire, Giordano said there were signs of forced entry.

Giordano said the vacancy of the structure allowed the flames to spread quickly.

Although a pond sits between the structure and the Cristo Rey buildings, water supply was limited for crews battling the blaze. Giordano said they had discussed the problem previously and brought water in from about 1,200 feet away near Houston Road.

If the fire had been too much bigger, he said crews might have just let it burn. Officials have been watching the property, which has been vacant for some time.

"We've had times where we come up and keep an eye on it for this exact reason," Giordano said. "There's a couple times when we've come up here and find doors open."

The Covington diocese used to own the building, Giordano said, and the Cristo Rey parish used it as a retreat center. The new owner, however, will most likely demolish the building, Giordano added.

According to fire officials, Western & Southern Financial Group currently owns the building and the Eagle Realty Group maintains the property.

Fire crews from Point Pleasant, Hebron, Erlanger and the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport responded to the fire. Several Boone County and Newport officers - and their K-9s - remained over at Cristo Rey as crews worked to extinguish the fire.

"They were making sure the individual they saw (running from the building before the fire started) wasn't over there," Giordano said.